Art is good for health and improves our psychological well -being: that going to the museum, listening to music and in general to do cultural activities do well to health It is a widespread and historically recurring belief in many different civilizations. But it is more than a rumor, or of a commonplace handed down in the millennia, the positive effect of involvement in artistic and cultural activities – that it is passive, that is, of appreciation, or is active, that is, of artistic creation – has been demonstrated: it is the same World Health Organization To remind us that, in recent decades, the therapies that integrate art and health have often been used to increase human well -being and health, going to support rehabilitation and estimate efforts.
Specifically, in 2019 the WHO also conducted a colossal study entitled “What is the evidence of the role of the arts in Improving Health and Well-Boing“Taking over 900 publications between medicine, psychology, anthropology and neuroscience by observing the contribution that culture can have in prevention and promotion of health and the role that the arts can have in the management of diseases within the treatment paths.
Of Italian researchers from the IULM University have shown that A museum visit is able to reduce stress and anxiety levels: After visiting an exhibition there was an average of an increase in the well -being of 40% of the participants in the study and a decrease of 60% of cortisol levels, the hormone associated with stress responses. A study by the University of London, he then showed that visitors and visitors to experience museums an increase in dopamineneurotransmitter associated with reward processes. There is a whole series of positive effects, therefore, that in addition to having a value in itself it also has a positive effect on physical health, longevity and reduction of cognitive decline.
And wellness is not only personal: in the book “Your Brain on Art” by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross the effects of participation in the arts are analyzed, and there are positive effects not only on an individual body level, but also on a social level.
